This invention relates to firing salvos comprised of grenades, squibs or the like, and more particularly to a system for separately firing two distinct salvos at different times using a single power transmitting wire.
Grenade salvos require ignition to be fired and are usually ignited using an electrical system originating at a remote spot, a safe distance away from and hidden from the point of actual launching such as from the interior of a tank or other vehicle. Accordingly, the electrical firing system must be connected, by an electric wire, to the salvos. Usually the firing system entails the use of one wire to launch each set of grenades or squibs comprising a salvo.
The current system uses polarized sensitive relays wired to the salvo ignition and fired by electrical current supplied by a power source. Thus, by supplying positive current to a relay, one salvo can be fired and, by supplying negative current to the other relay, the second salvo can be fired. However, prior to this invention a single wire system was not available for firing separate salvos at different points in time. A single wire was not being used for selectively carrying oppositely charged currents to matching polarity sensitive relays for firing only selected salvos.
Therefore, prior to this invention, if more than one salvo launching system was to be set in a particular area, a wire for each would have to be run from the launching spot to the remote area. Similarly, if adding another launching system to the same or neighboring spot was desired, a new wire had to be run.